Here is a list of books, articles, podcasts and programmes which have informed and inspired the design and development of Climate Lab. We also include the readings used as part of the day.
Please feel free to add to and/or share…
Table of contents
- Recommended Books
- Group & One-to-one Support & Eco-Therapy
- Podcasts, Online Talks & Radio Programmes
- More Tools/Resources
- Academic Articles
- Somatic Resources, Trauma & Bodywork
- Poems & Readings
- Artist Responses Resources
Recommended Books
Generation Dread
Brilliant book by Britt Wray which lists lots of resources and research on spectrum of climate concern to existential terror. Must read book of 2022!
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/58678656-generation-dread
Climate Anxiety – A Field Guide
Really instructive ‘practical manual’ by Sarah Jaquette Ray – well written, lots of ideas, research and resources.
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/50747101-a-field-guide-to-climate-anxiety
Making Art As if the World Mattered
This book by Lucy Neal explores the pivotal role artists play in re-thinking the future; re-inventing and re-imagining our world at a time of systemic change and uncertainty.
https://www.triarchypress.net/playing.html
Suzi Gablik
Artist, critic, ground-breaking pioneer of all things art and activist, trailblazer. The Re-enchantment of Art and also Conversations Before the End of Time explores the role of art at a time of ecological, social and spiritual collapse.
Suzi Gablik is my inspiration and was my mentor. She died in 2022.
Letters to the Earth from ‘Culture Declares’
Letters of love, loss, hope and action to a planet in crisis. Compiled by Extinction Rebellion, Culture Declares and the UK Student Climate Network.
Facilitating Spaces
(For inner and outer activism).
Emergent Strategy series of books – most recently ‘Holding Change’ by Adrienne Maree Brown
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/55814319-holding-change
(Anything by) Joanna Macy
Eco-psychologist, systems theorist, Buddhist, creator of ‘The Work That Re-connects’ – theory, sense and structures for creatively working with groups on climate/social justice work.
Active Hope Book & Training
(Book by Joanna Macy & Chris Johnstone – and free online training) A space to process and learn to facilitate spaces for climate anxiety.
Group & One-to-one Support & Eco-Therapy
Good Grief Network (in US and online)
Resources, trainings, podcasts and tips for gathering people to talk about climate anxiety and grief https://www.goodgriefnetwork.org/
Climate Psychology Alliance (in UK)
UK based practitioners who are holding climate cafes, spaces to process anxiety and grief. Also lists climate informed therapists https://www.climatepsychologyalliance.org/
One to one Support
List of ‘Climate Informed Psychotherapists’
Support for Young People
https://www.climatepsychologyalliance.org/index.php/young-people
Caroline Hickman
Caroline gives talks and workshops on climate psychology and offers individual ‘climate-aware’ therapy exploring how to engage with the climate and ecological crisis and develop emotional responses to these challenging times. She is also a board member of the Climate Psychology Alliance, a forum for people ‘facing difficult truths’ who want to make connections between depth psychology and the climate and ecological crisis.
Podcasts, Online Talks & Radio Programmes
Radio Series: ‘The End of the World has already happened’, Timothy Morton.
Timothy Morton, dubbed ‘philosopher prophet of the Anthropocene’, rethinks our psychological relationship with the climate crisis, and our place in the biosphere.
Articles ‘I Need To Know’
A series by The Conversation, which gives teenagers the chance to have their questions about the world answered by experts, e.g I’m up late at night worrying about global warming – please can you put my mind at rest?
Podcast: ‘Facing It’ by Jennifer Atkinson
This podcast explores the emotional burden of climate change, and why despair leaves so many people unable to respond to our existential threat. Overcoming that paralysis is the first step in moving to action, and yet official climate strategies rarely address the emotional toll of climate grief and eco anxiety.
Podcast & Interview: ‘WHY? From the Good Grief Network
Aimee & Laura interview Dr. Sarah Jaquette Ray about her book, A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety.
SoundArt
Unscripted and unedited sharing of some of the thoughts relating to hope recorded for the attendees of the Creativity, Arts, and Climate Action event at Centre for Alternative Technology, March 30th 2023.
More Tools/Resources
7 Tools to Help You Keep Your Cool on a Warming Planet
Academic Articles
“The Process of Eco-Anxiety and Ecological Grief”: A Narrative Review and a New Proposal by Panu Pihkala
“Alchemizing Sorrow Into Deep Determination”: Emotional Reflexivity and Climate Change Engagement by Jo Hamilton
Somatic Resources, Trauma & Bodywork
TRE – Trauma Release Exercises
Online and in person series of exercises (done solo or in a group) to support safe release of anxiety, tension and trauma. An important tool to safely process and work with strong emotions which arise in the context of climate anxiety, grief and eco-distress. David Bercelli is the developer of TRE. More about him and the work. This video gives you a sense of what might happen in a TRE session.
Polyvagal Theory
Developed by Stephen Porges. Article on mapping/tracking your nervous system.
What is polyvagal theory and why is it important in creating a sense of safety?
There are many other places and ways to connect with the body – we recommend any and all ‘trauma-informed’ bodywork and somatic exercises for working with groups and individuals.
Please share your ideas and resources with us.
Poems & Readings used in Online Global Climate Lab 2023
I don’t know about you but this is how I feel about Mother Nature.
We have become Mother Nature’s enemy.
The planet is dying. Mother Nature is crying Out for Help.
We need to start working together. You may think the planet is not crying but it is.
Mother Nature is inside of us, she is all around us.
She made us be alive.
For if she were not alive we would not live.
We must thank her everyday.
(Tabitha Ravula Aged 7 and 11/12’s.)
“You may think that you are simply one small positive droplet in an ocean of troubles. A droplet that can’t do anything. But if you search our ever expanding ocean you will find millions of other small droplets with the same mindset as yourself. Together you form a sea in an ocean. That sea can stir a storm. That sea can make a change.”
(Harkiran S.S. Dhingra, Age 15.)
Both of the above are from “Letters to the Earth (Writing to a Planet in Crisis)”. Culture Declares/XR/UK Student Climate Network etc
***
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
(Rainer Maria Rilke)
***
May we turn inwards and stumble upon our true roots
In the intertwining biology of this exquisite planet.
May nourishment and power pulse through these roots,
And fierce determination to continue the billion-year dance.
(John Seed)
***
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.
(Rainer Maria Rilke)
***
Dear listeners,
We’re prisoners.
Who can’t keep a tidy cell.
And that’s not a prediction
That’s a black and white fact.
So when, may I ask,
Are we going to act?
You’re trying your best
You’re trying to tell us,
But apparently, it’s your fault.
If they never knew,
It wouldn’t be true.
You’re shooting the messenger,
But go on- care less!
Then we’ll find ourselves in a
Right proper mess.
Do they not get the fuss?
NO ONE’S COMING TO SAVE US!
I can’t even imagine
How hard it must be
Day after day after day after day
To document details,
Of how we’ll all end
And we’re worrying here
about how much we’ll spend
on the flights
and the lights
and the chocolate
and meat.
“She’s lost her mind, she needs a hand,
Here, please take a seat.”
No thanks,
I’ll stand.
I’ll stand by you
Just as others do, too.
You might feel alone,
Like you’re all on your own
Fighting a battle which you’ll never win.
But remember this:
You’ve got a voice within.
You might feel obliged
To keep your mouth shut.
“They’ll stop thinking I’m smart”,
You might tell yourself.
But look at the chart.
Tune in to your heart.
They won’t listen to facts,
So why would they start?
All facts need a voice
To deliver them out
And we all have a voice
Behind the self-doubt.
You are changing the earth
You are giving it worth.
Some might not listen
But then…
…some do.
(Mathilda Crompton, Aged 14, written for Climate Lab Participants).
Artist Responses Resources
Carolina Caycedo: Healing arts that use the Tarot
https://www.thesensingsalon.org/
and if you want a tarot reading by 2 incredible cultural workers
https://www.elementumfoundation.org/
The list of resources was compiled for Climate Lab by Fern Smith, June 2023.
For more information about future online/in person Climate Labs contact climatelabwales@gmail.com and/or join the ‘Emergence’ mailing list
Please help us to add to this list with your readings and resources.
Send your ideas with subject line ‘Resources’ to: climatelabwales@gmail.com